Now, after progressing through the go-karting ranks, the 15-year-old Pagnotta is coming off a stellar first season in legend car competition, earning rookie of the year honors and an eighth overall finish in the Central PA Legends division, as well as a fourth-overall finish nationally for his age class.

Pagnotta’s love of racing first manifested at age seven, when his father, Fran, purchased a “yard cart” that Chandler could drive around in the yard. His young son immediately became obsessed.

“I got him in that and he was just having so much fun,” Fran said. “He’d just drive that until it ran out of gas, then we’d fill it up and he just kept going. He just didn't want to stop."

When Fran began telling his co-workers about how his child was infatuated with the toy cart, one gave him a suggestion: competitive go-karting.

The Pagnottas didn’t know much about go-karting, but after visiting Hunterstown Speedway and doing some research, they decided to sign Chandler up, putting a reasonable financial stake in the new hobby.

“It’s not like you can just try it,” Fran said. “You actually have to go out and buy a cart. So it’s quite the investment [for a new hobby].”

Pagnotta enjoyed racing go-karts, but after a couple years competing,made the step up to legend cars, continuing to race on dirts. The cars have motorcycle engines in them, and are 5/8th scale replicas of vintage Ford cars.

The jump meant that Chandler, a Corpus Christi Catholic School student in Chambersburg, would no longer just be competing against kids, but people of all ages and all experiences.

It was an intimidating proposition at first, but something that Chandler notes went smoothly, thanks to the camaraderie of the organization he competes in, Central PA Legends.

"The racing community as a whole is pretty good." Chandler said. "There's a a stereotype in the word "racer" that they're all mean and tough. But really a lot of them are actually really nice. It's a lot different than people think."

It doesn’t make it any less scary of a proposition to watch from the stands.

“As a parent, it’s very nervewracking, because he’s racing with adults,” Fran said. “This isn’t kid stuff. This is full-blown racing. There are several other younger kids, but this isn’t like other sports where you’re playing teams of your own age. You get thrown in with the adults and you race, so it’s very competitive.”

Chandler Pagnotta stand next to his legend car during his strong rookie campaign.(Photo11: Courtesy of Fran Pagnotta)

Pagnotta notes that his family is one of the few that aren’t a quote-unquote “racing family,” so they came into the sport behind the eight ball.

Luckily, fellow Central PA Legends racers like Travis Perry helped out. Perry has been a lifelong follower of racing and has competed for the last five years, coming over to the Pagnottas throughout the year to help show them the ropes a little bit.

“Our group, we have a good group of guys,” Perry said. “We have a different breed in our series.”

With Perry’s help, Chandler ended up eighth overall in the entire circuit for Central PA Legends, and finished first among all the first-year players in the group, coming in sixth place in his first career race at Susquehanna Speedway in March.

“We were very surpised [by his success],” Fran said. “He did okay in go-karts, he had a lot of accomplishments but wasn’t a dominant racer… He took to it very quickly.”

Perry wasn’t as surprised, saying that he think Pagnotta has the right mentality for the series.

“The way he drives, the kind of head he has on his shoulders, he just has a knack for it,” Perry said.

Despite the results, Chandler said the transition to the new vehicle wasn’t as smooth for him as others would guess, noting he may have underestimated the difference in driving the two carts.

So, next year, he hopes to drive faster, and rack up a first-place finish after recording a top finish of fourth this past season.

"Hopefully next year we can get a win. That would be pretty good," Chandler said. "If we get a win we'll be pretty happy. That's about as good as it gets"